Hummus has become as ubiquitous as salsa on the dip table. I occasionally buy hummus, but it tends to be a little salty for my palate and remember — I failed organic chemistry in college — so I have no earthly idea what “Potassium Sorbate” is. Also, I am now a little suspicious of “Natural Flavors” after a Facebook posting about the use of beaver castoreum as a food additive (yes, I will eat raw oysters but no, I will not lick a beaver’s butt). So, I like to make my own hummus.

A few months ago, I visited this hole-in-wall middle eastern grocer/butcher looking for lamb ribs at my husband’s request (they were okay, but super gamey, and we won’t be barbecuing that cut again). I purchased this amazing condiment  — preserved lemon. They are whole lemons preserved in a salty brine. I guess you’d call them pickled? You take them out of the brine, rinse them, slice them in half or quarters, pull the pulp from the pith/rind, and then slice them smaller as needed for your recipe. Over the winter I had done some lovely oven braises of lamb shoulder with tomatoes and this preserved lemon. It adds a deep lemony flavor without adding acidity — really nice with the lamb.

So come warmer weather, the lemons are hanging out in the back of my fridge, and I decided to amp up my basic hummus preparation with these babies. OMG — just the right touch to take your hummus to the next level.

Hummus with Preserved Lemons

2 – 4 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 preserved lemons, rinsed, pulp discarded, sliced into smaller pieces
Two cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained, BUT reserve about 1/4 cup of the canning liquid
2 – 4 tablespoons tahini
2 – 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt

Throw the garlic and lemon in the food processor and pulse until fine. I say 2 – 4 cloves of garlic because I like mine REALLY garlicky — others might like it a little milder.

Add the chickpeas and pulse until finely chopped but not mush (I like to keep some chickpea texture). Add 2 tablespoons each of the tahini and olive oil and whir around — adding tahini and/or olive oil until the desired texture. I say 2 – 4 tablespoons of tahini because it can vary in texture and you might need to add a little more or a little less to taste and preference. IF needed, add the canning liquid a tablespoon at a time to lighten up the texture.

Taste for seasoning. You may need a touch of kosher salt, but watch it, because the lemons add a fair amount of salt. Refrigerate until ready to use — the flavors will meld together after a few hours in the fridge.

Serve with sturdy dippers — like toasted pita chips, “scooper-style” tortilla chips, or thick pretzels.

7/10: Updated to add notes about canning liquid

Although my parents come from humble beginnings in Arkansas, I don’t remember ever seeing grits on our table. I don’t remember seeing them at my grandparents, either. My mom doesn’t care for them, she says, so I wasn’t really introduced to them until an adult. I probably wouldn’t have cared for them as a child — but man am I a fan now! I adore them for breakfast, simply prepared with butter, salt, and fresh ground pepper. I like them as a side dish, rich with cheese. I like them baked with garlic and chili peppers and eggs and (yes) more cheese! I also like their Italian cousin, Polenta.

I had shrimp and grits in a restaurant once. It was delicious, but $30 for what was a pile of (over-salted) grits and four shrimp, well, I felt a little gypped. After all, shrimp and grits started as simple coastal cooking — not haute cuisine. I knew I could whip this out at home and create a dish more in line with its humble beginnings.

Cheesy Stone-Ground Grits

Let’s start with our base — the grits. I used South Carolina-sourced stone ground white corn grits. I prepared it as directed on the package to serve four: 4 1/2 cups water, 1 cup grits, 1/2 teaspoon salt. Put it all in a pot and brought to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once boiling, I covered it, turned heat town to low/medium-low, and set timer for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, adjusting the heat if it seems to be simmering too vigorously. Mine took closer to 60 or 65 minutes to get creamy and done — but that’s been my experience with this brand of grits. Once done, I added 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter and about a cup of shredded cheddar. Stir until the butter and cheese are melted.

I have made perfectly tasty cheese grits with the grocery store variety in the canister that takes 15 – 20 minutes to cook. Just use the water/grits ratio for four servings as directed on the package (I seem to be out — so I will try to nab that info at a later date).

Corn and Zucchini “Succotash”

This is one of those “use it up” accompaniments that came together because I didn’t want to waste produce in the fridge. I had four ears of grilled corn from the previous weekend — so I stripped the kernels off of those with a chef’s knife. I had two medium zucchini that I cut in half, then vertically into quarters, and then into little “triangles”.

Throw a couple tablespoons of bacon fat into a large skillet and melt down. Add the corn and zucchini. Sprinkle with kosher salt (lightly) and fresh ground pepper (generously). Cook, stirring occasionally, until the zucchini starts to soften but still has some tooth, maybe 7 to 10 minutes. I covered it for some of the time just to let steam do some of the cooking work.

You could use butter instead of bacon fat, but the bacon fat is part of the original dish, so I wanted to incorporate that unctuous, salty, smoky flavor that paired so well with the smoky grilled corn.

Roasted Shrimp

I saw this general technique for cooking shrimp on an episode of Barefoot Contessa. It is now my go-to method for cooking shrimp that will be served as the “star” or standalone. They don’t get rubbery and the taste and texture of the shrimp really shine. These make a lovely shrimp cocktail — warm or chilled.

Preheat your oven to 375F. Line a large cookie sheet with foil.

Start with one pound of peeled, be-headed, deveined shrimp. I use 21/25 count. You could go a little smaller or a little larger, but this is not the best method for really large or really small shrimp. Spread the shrimp in a single layer on the lined cookie sheet. Drizzle with some extra virgin olive oil (a tablespoon or so?), then sprinkle with kosher salt (lightly), fresh ground pepper (generously), and some red pepper flakes (to taste).

Put the shrimp in the oven. Check the shrimp at about 3 or 4 minutes — they should be turning pink and slightly opaque. Flip them over with tongs and cook an additional 3 to 4 minutes. Pull them when they look NOT QUITE done — there will be some carry-over cooking as they rest on the counter.

So if you started the grits, then started the “succotash”, then roasted off the shrimp, HOPEFULLY it all came together at about the right time.

Scoop some of those grits into a large soup bowl. Spoon some of the corn and zucchini over the grits, then pile the shrimp over those. Spoon some of the shrimp’s cooking “juice” over the shrimp (I’ve been known to sop that up with bread). Serves 4 as a main dish (about 6 good-sized shrimp each) or 8 as a first course (3 shrimp each).

Rhubarb berry ice cream, anyone?

It’s summer, it’s hot, and I am going to eat ice cream. The store-bought stuff is fine, but have you tried reading the labels lately? Poly-what? Hydrolyzed who? I flunked organic chemistry in college, so I really can’t decipher what I’m eating. And forget about the reduced fat or reduced sugar varieties — UGH. So if I’m going to eat ice cream, why not make it out of ingredients I can pronounce and seasonal flavors that really tickle my palate?

As a child, we had one of those old-fashioned Ice+salt wooden-crock hand-crank ice cream makers. Us kids would beg and beg and beg for ice cream, my parents would say no we never crank long enough, we would promise to crank and please oh please and finally, yes, my parents would give in. Each of us kids (there were three of us) would crank for about 2 minutes, plead total exhaustion, and then my poor dad would be stuck cranking that thing for 45 minutes by himself. The ice cream was wonderful, but it was understandably about a once-a-year treat.

As a young adult, I bought one of those small units where you freeze a special bowl and then make ice cream in it. I could never get my freezer cold enough, so the ice cream never really froze fast enough or hard enough, so it was a bit of a disappointment. Fast forward to my **ahem** later adult years, and I decide to acquire one of those ice+salt machines, but an ELECTRIC one. They run about $40. My first one died after just a few batches but my current one seems to be going strong.

So my latest ice cream confection truly is blogworthy. I started by making a compote of rhubarb and mixed berries at my brick house mid-week (it was very tasty on its own and would have been awesome over waffles, french toast, or vanilla ice cream). I refrigerated it for a couple of days before transporting it to the beach house on a Friday night. That Saturday, I combined the compote with the ice cream base and froze me up some ice cream.

Rhubarb and Mixed Berry Compote

1 cup chopped rhubarb
2 cups berries (I used a frozen cherry, blackberry, black raspberry, blueberry mix)
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 hunk peeled ginger, about 3/4 inch, cut into several thin rounds (COUNT HOW MANY)
1/4 cup water

Combine all in a non-reactive saucepan. Bring to a low boil over medium heat. Turn heat down and simmer gently for 5 – 10 minutes until the rhubarb is tender but not mushy and the liquid has turned syrupy. If you taste the rhubarb it should have absorbed some of the sugar but still retain some tartness. Let cool to room temperature. Fish out the ginger rounds (that’s why you have to count them). Refrigerate several hours before using to make ice cream.

Ice Cream Base
Adapted from Sweet Cream Base #1, Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book

3 extra-large eggs
Yolk of 1 extra-large egg
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk

Whisk the eggs in a HUGE bowl until light and fluffy. Add the sugar gradually, whisking like crazy. Add the cream gradually, whisking gently to combine. Add the milk gradually, whisking gently to combine. Add the refrigerated compote, stirring gently to combine.

Freeze according to your manufacturers instructions. These quantities are appropriate for a 4 quart ice cream maker.

*****

I was a little short on ice and too lazy to drive back down to the liquor store to buy more, so my ice cream did NOT thicken/freeze in the ice cream machine as much as I would have liked. No worries — I just scooped it into a couple of large plastic containers, leaving headroom, and froze the covered containers in my VERY cold home freezer. Even if it had thickened to the consistency of soft-serve, which is about what I get out of my machine, I still would have had to harden it off in the freezer. It’s just part of the process.

I served the ice cream with fresh NJ blueberries.

*****

I made this ice cream a few weeks ago, using fresh strawberries rather than the mixed frozen berries in the compote. I also added some uncooked fresh strawberries to the base. It was delicious, but not nearly as colorful. Also — the uncooked strawberries tend to get a little hard when they freeze, but the cooked ones had soaked up some sugar and remained softer after freezing. I’m now sold on the idea of pre-cooking the fruit with sugar for ice cream.

So the current joke at our house is whether or not something is “Blogworthy” (for those of you of a certain age, you might recall Elaine of the TV show “Seinfeld” using the term “Spongeworthy”). It started out innocently enough, when I announced on a Friday that I intended to cook something “Blogworthy” over the weekend. So when my husband ate his yogurt, he asked if it was “Blogworthy.” When he poured a glass of ginger ale, he asked if it was “Blogworthy.” And so on. That didn’t last long, FORTUNATELY, but now it’s our little joke about whether a dish or a meal is merely ordinary or something extraordinary and worth sharing with others (he is very supportive of my blogging and he’s even getting a little more patient about the picture taking).

So at our little beach cottage, my husband has planted a few old-fashioned fruit-bearing bushes that begin to bear fruit right about NOW. We have Gooseberries, Currants (both red and black), and a Service Berry (my Mom calls it Sarvis Berry — both are correct). These are nice to eat out of hand but what he REALLY loves is a not-too-sweet bread chock-full of the fruits of his labor. So he tasked me to make him some Blogworthy Bread with our current crop of Service Berries.

This recipe is the same basic recipe I’ve posted recently, but I took more of a dump approach with the ingredients — it’s a VERY forgiving recipe. My husband ate at least half of this bread over the course of two days. Me and a couple of friends had some with some leftover home-made strawberry rhubarb ice cream. We all pronounced this bread BLOGWORTHY.

Service Berry Breakfast Bread

2 cups Service Berries (aka Sarvis Berries)
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375F. Prepare an 11 x 7 x 2 inches baking pan by spraying liberally with baking spray.

Rinse your berries and pick over for stems, leaves, and small bugs. Drain well. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of the flour over the berries and gently shake them around to coat lightly.

In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the butter, sugar, eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest, and buttermilk until well combined. Dump in the dry ingredients and mix by hand until incorporated. I started with the whisk and ended with a rubber spatula.

Gently fold in the berries. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the loaf at 375F for 15 minutes. Rotate the pan and cook another 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (or with only a few crumbs).

Allow to cool to warm before cutting — this is a VERY moist bread and if you cut into it too soon, it will be gummy. Store tightly covered at room temperature, not that it’s going to last very long!

*****

You could substitute fresh blueberries for the service berries.

I love me some crab. Especially our beloved local Maryland Blue Crab. Hardshell, softshell, crab cakes, crab balls, lump, backfin, soup, bisque, chowder … you name it, I’ll eat it. Picking crabs is a lovely way to spend a hot summer afternoon, sitting at a picnic table covered in paper bags, cold beverages at hand, but it is HARD work and that crab fights back! Sometimes you just want to take it easy and get your crab fix without the nicks and cuts, right?

This weekend, my local market had some imported crab on sale. I grabbed a tub with the idea that I was going to make a hot crab dip, an idea that got discarded as soon as I got my sailing invitation! [It was a perfect day for sailing and I am grateful for my friends with sailboats!] Instead, I grabbed a few items from the fridge and pantry and threw together a crab dip that came together quickly and went down just as fast.

Spicy Cold Crab Dip
Serves 4 as an appetizer

1 small container (5 – 6 oz) plain greek yogurt (I used nonfat)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise (I used “light”)
1 tablespoon bottled key lime juice (I use “Nellie and Joe’s”)
1 – 2 teaspoons of diced hot cherry peppers, to taste
1/2 teaspoon chili powder (medium), to taste
Salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
8 oz crab, carefully picked over
3/4 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese (I used a bagged “Mexican” 4-cheese blend)

Combine the yogurt, mayonnaise, lime juice, cherry peppers, chili powder, a pinch or two of salt, and cracked pepper in a bowl. Taste for seasoning — you are looking for a little zing not a slap in the face, but you may find you need a tad more hot peppers or chili powder. Add more salt SPARINGLY, since the cheese and crab will be somewhat salty themselves.

Gently pick and finger through the crab, extracting all the shell and cartilage you find, without breaking it up too much. Gently fold the crab and the cheese into the yogurt mixture. Refrigerate until ready to use. Serve cold with a sturdy dipper, like tortilla chips or pita chips. IF there’s any leftover (HA!), eat it within a day.

[photo credit: Steve Kullen]

*****

Fresh crab is highly perishable. Keep it refrigerated until you are actually using it.

I used an imported crab labelled “lump” that my market sold at a “backfin” price. Don’t use the $20/lb+ lump in this dip — save that for crabcakes!

I made a variation the day before with NO salt and Old Bay instead of chili powder — also a home run! I went with chili powder rather than Old Bay this time because one of my guests is gastro-sensitive to some unknown component of Old Bay. Honestly — I think I liked the chili powder better

*****

7/25 update: Over the Fourth, I made a double batch that (surprisingly) wasn’t consumed within a couple of days, so I froze the leftovers. Early this week, I pulled it out of the freezer to partially thaw, threw it in a shallow baking dish (prepare with baking spray first!), and then threw THAT into a 350F oven until hot and bubbly (stir occasionally to ensure heated through). Throw a couple of handfuls of cheese on top, back in the oven to melt thoroughly, and TA DA — hot crab dip!